The Great War
by gavin2313
Summary: The Great War tells the tale of the Human Covenant War from its beginning to its end. From Army grunts to Navy fleet commanders, from Marine shock troopers to Spartans, this is a collection of stories of those who fought to save humanity from complete destruction. Rated T for violence, language and gore.
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

**December 15 2574**

**New York, Earth**

As a combat veteran in the Great War, I always had the desire to tell the stories of myself and of those who fought in that terrible war. I wanted people to never forget about the sacrifices we have made, the daunting journey humanity took to reach our current state. I started this journey exactly five years ago, searching for those who have seen it all and those who had a tale to tell. I interviewed hundreds of combat veterans, watched the AI reconstruction of many battles, review the databases of ONI countless times. Finally, in a little apartment in the city of New York, I began to write this book, which would take many more years to complete.

At the start of my search, it didn't surprise me to find out that most of those who had been there at the beginning of the Great War did not survive. That didn't stop me, but instead made me more determined. There must be some, those few who are either extremely skilled or extremely lucky.

After weeks of searching and help from some friends in the Office of Naval Intelligence, I managed to find a sixty six year old man living in New York City. His name was Colonel Phillips Jackson.

Colonel Phillips Jackson was a former Marine Special Forces operator, who served in the latter years of the Insurrection and early years of the Great War as a sniper and later as a Spec Ops team leader. After the war ended, he continued to train prospective special forces recruits until he retired to spend more time with his family.

On January 2 2569, I sat down in his house, trying to measure this immensely experienced soldier. After a moment of silence when we both sipped coffee from our cups, Colonel Jackson broke it. "Commander, you are in Spartans right?" he said lightly, a smile on his face. I stared at him, trying to get the surprise out of my face. Not many people were privy to that information and unlike most of the Spartans I was only average height at best.

"I take that as a yes then. I knew you are a Spartan because of the way you moved. So graceful and so in control. Just like the Master Chief and Noble Six. I fought alongside them, you know? And now they are dead." Colonel Jackson said softly, his eyes staring out of the window at somewhere far away.

I cleared my throat to clear away my initial surprise. "Would you honor me with your experiences in the Great War? Where you fought at? How you fought?"

The older man chuckled. "My experiences? Oh ho, that will be quite a long tale. Where do want me to start? The Insurrection or the first contact on Harvest?"

"The one where you felt was the right place to start." I replied without hesitation. That is where I would have started if I was the one being interviewed.

"Where to start? where to start?" Colonel Jackson muttered. "It was the year 2524. Near the end of the Insurrection. Team Tyrant Three, my team, was on Eridanus II, participating in the massive final assault on Elysium City."

It was a smoky day..."


	2. Chapter 1: The Drop

**Section I: Life Between Two Wars**

**Chapter 1: The Drop**

**Staff Sergeant Phillip Jackson, **

**Marine Special Operations Team Tyrant Three, **

**UNSC Marine Special Operations Command**

**2155 hours, March 21 2524, **

**UNSC Shadow, Midsummer Night class light frigate, **

**10000m above Elysium City. **

"All teams, five minutes to mission start." Major Aboim said calmly over company COM. I sat in my drop pod, fingering my sniper rifle in its holster beside my seat, silently going over the details of the mission in my head. According to ONI, the three highest ranking Insurrectionists, General Howard Graves, General Hasegawa and Governor Blunt would have one final meeting in a military bunker in the middle of the city. After that, they would go on their separate ways so this would be our chance to end this war. Problem was, the city was under siege by two million Marines and three Navy fleets. The Innie still had considerable air and naval assets over the skies of Elysium City, with the heavy cruisers _Glory_ and _Doom _being the most significant threat to our fleets, though the only reason why they were still operational was because Command didn't want to cause any more civilian casualties in the orbital bombardments. Our mission, Tyrant Company's mission, was to drop in experimental stealth drop pods, get past the dozen or so Innie warships and hundreds of enemy fighters and aircraft, avoid detection by Innie air defenses who would be looking out for exactly such a drop, meet up with ONI informants in the city and assassinate all three heavily guarded Innie commanders. Sounds simple right?

I looked at my drop pod doubtfully. This new stealth drop pod was smaller than the standard one, with the exterior covered in stealth plating. In place of a braking chute which would be too visible, the pod has four thrusters that would fire downwards at predetermined heights which would slow down the pod enough to not kill the occupant on impact with the ground. At least, that was what the ONI technicians said.

"Two minutes."

"Squad COM check. Tyrant Three One check." Captain Ponder, Tyrant Three team leader, said.

I waited for my team mates to confirm, then muttered, "Tyrant Three Eleven check."

"One minute."

I took a deep breath to squash the queasy feeling I always get before a drop. Even after two dozen drops, I was still nervous about dropping feet first into hell.

"Thirty seconds. Twenty...ten...five, four, three, two, one. Mission commencing. Good luck."

The drop pod shuddered and dropped. I quickly switched on night vision on my HUD, allowing me to view events through the viewscreen in front and below me. The clouds obscured my view for the most part, though I could see the occasional flash through the clouds as some explosion or another took place in the raging battle below.

"All Tyrant teams, change bearing 120 degrees. I repeat, change bearing 120 degrees." The mission handler on the UNSC Shadow shouted over COM.

Before I could question or even think through that strange order, I emerged from the clouds.

And all hell broke loose. Vulture and Sparrowhawk gunships attacked the Innie warships while hundreds of Skyhawk and Falcon air superiority fighters dueled each other in the battle for air dominance over Elysium City. I cursed and quickly typed in the orders that would change my drop pod's angle of approach to our LZ. Directly in front of my viewscreen, another drop pod crashed into a fighter jet, erupting into fiery flames and briefly illuminating the sky. I quickly checked the team roster. Luckily, it wasn't someone from my team. Tracer rounds zipped past and I swore I could hear the impact of several rounds on the armor of my drop pod. Luckily the armor held and I continued to steer the pod clear of the chaos surrounding me.

"Tyrant Three, waypoint marks new LZ. Try to head towards it." Captain Ponder's voice sounded strained as he no doubt also struggled to keep his pod from destruction. I flashed my response and typed in the new inputs. My pod shuddered repeatedly as the shockwave of nearby explosions hit it. _Oh god, please let me survive this. _I prayed for the first time in years.

Suddenly I was clear. No fighter jets flew past me, no tracer rounds illuminated my screen. I could see several drop pods with green IFF tags dropping alongside me. I let out the breath that I had been holding unconsciously and looked at the mission time clock. Thirty seconds into the mission and it looked fine. We only lost one man and the rest were about to land inside the mission area.

Something hit my pod. My teammates would later tell me that that something were debris from a destroyed fighter. My world spun as I frantically tried to use my thrusters to get the pod back into the correct orientation. I glanced at my altitude meter and winced. Two thousand meters and dropping way too fast. One thousand meters. My pod finally righted itself but it was too late. I already missed the critical heights where my thrusters would fire to slow the pod down. I physically braced myself as the ground rose up to meet me. Then I hit. The pod crunched violently and my bones jarred. The pain coursing through my body was so overwhelming. The last thing I saw was the open sky, strangely beautiful, with thousands of tracer rounds and missiles flying around.

XXXXXXXXXX

I opened my eyes again. This time, it wasn't night I saw, but a very familiar sky, with double suns in it. _Mamore. Home_, I thought groggily as I struggled to stand up. My muscles felt weary as I took a moment to get my bearings. It took me a while to figure out where I was. My family's farmstead in the Mato Grosso province near the Haven arcology.

My heart clenched. _No, that was supposed to have been destroyed. _I walked towards the house that I grew up in. JOTUN machines worked in the fields around me, bringing in the next harvest. Half a dozen native birds flew over my head when I inadvertently disturbed them. When I was a hundred meters away from my house, my parents walked out.

"Phil, you are back." My mum cried out in delight, rushing towards me. I stopped, eyes wide and unbelieving. They were supposed to be dead. My mum stopped and looked back when the siren blared from the arcology. I heard a familiar sound and I looked up. A missile was streaking across the sky towards the arcology. Crying out a warning, I ran towards my parents. Too late.

The nuclear missile hit the arcology and erupted. The brightness of the explosion forced me to look away as a mushroom cloud began to form. A shockwave of heat and concussive force blew out. Even though they were too far away, I held out a hand towards my parents in denial. The shockwave washed over them, the heat burning their bodies down to their bones, then the concussive shockwave blew the remains away. I sank down to my knees and cried. It was then that I realised that I was in my adult body, not my eight year old body.

XXXXXXXXXX

The Insurrection started in 2492, on a major Outer Colonies world called Far Isle. Unable to contain the rebellion, the UNSC ordered a nuclear razing of the colony, hoping to destroy the rebels and quash any further notion of rebellion from the other colonies. They were wrong. Instead, the incident was treated as an act of martyrdom by the other Outer Colonies and several dozen worlds banded together to form the United Rebel Front.

In the beginning, the URF bided their time, gathering their strength and waiting for the opportunity to strike. Then in 2494, in a bold move, URF commandos seized control of the UNSC corvette, _Callisto. _Even though the corvette was recaptured, the URF had gained the technology necessary to build warships of their own. The rebellion started later in 2494 in the Eridanus system, which the Innies had named their capital and started attacking UNSC colony worlds. A hundred colony worlds fell to the Innies before the UNSC started their counter attack. In Operation: Charlemagne, UNSC Marines and special forces struck Eridanus II in an attempt to decapitate the Innie leadership and destroy their shipyards. The mission was a success, though the Innie leadership managed to escape unscathed. The war dragged out and sentiments towards the war in the UNSC was increasingly unpopular.

In the ensuring years, several major naval battles erupted in which both sides were equally matched, though the Innies lost one of their best naval commanders in the Second Battle of Theta Ursae Majoris. It was only in 2511, when the URF bombed Mamore with a nuclear weapon causing ten million casualties, that public opinion turned in favor of the UNSC and the UNSC began gathering a huge force to assault Innie held space. Two years later, Operation: TREBUCHET commenced. In an unprecedented massive attack, UNSC invaded Innie held space with their entire military might. For eleven years, the two factions fought each other in bloody battles until all the rebel worlds were taken by the UNSC. Only Eridanus II remained at the end of that bloody campaign, and now victory was at hand.

XXXXXXXXXX

I felt a nudge against my side, followed by someone shaking my shoulders. Grunting, I slapped the hand away and opened my eyes. It took a while to focus.

"Get up, Phil." Connor, our medic, said. "You are fine, no injuries. Captain and the rest of the lads are waiting."

"Are the lads fine?" I groaned.

"Yes, they are. Get up mate."

I stood up and took a while to assess my surroundings. My teammates had pulled me out of my pod and dragged me to a small park. I nodded at Captain Ponder, indicating that I was fine. Ponder motioned for us to gather around him.

"Boys, the rest of the company is holed up in High Street about two hundred meters from the mission objective. We are to rendezvous with them there. We got fifteen minutes to do that so keep it tight. Don't fire unless fired upon. We don't want to attract any attention. Is that clear?"

We nodded at him. Captain Ponder paused for a moment before adding. "Tyrant Four got caught by a battalion of heavy infantry. All dead."

"Damn. They had the recon drones." Johnson cursed. Another worrying factor. Without the recon drones, we were completely blind in the area.

"Doesn't matter. We move into the bunker, clear it room by room and kill every single Innie son of a bitch in it. Let's move out, we are losing time." Captain Ponder said grimly. "Phil, take point."

I picked up my sniper rifle and slung it over my back. The DMR would be more suitable for street combat so I kept it in hand and moved out with my teammates following. In the distance, I could hear the sounds of artillery firing and hundreds of firefights, but there was not a sound in our immediate area. After deeming the area clear, I waved my teammates forward and we moved into the adjacent street, all of us silent deadly angels of death.

_I will avenge you, father, mother, brother_, I swore for the umpteenth time. _I will avenge you._

**Author's Note:**

**Alright, the first chapter is done. So what do you guys think about this? I set this story in alternate universe where the battles are much larger than they were in the original universe. I also took the liberty to change some of the events so they fit into the story better. Otherwise, the events will be the same as the actual events and I will also be using the same weapons as the UNSC uses, with some additions. Many familiar characters will also be featured later in the story. I am sure some of you would have recognised Captain Ponder and Avery Johnson in this chapter. **

**Next chapter will be the assassination of the Innie High Command and the end of the battle on Eridanus II. **

**You may have noticed that the beginning of this chapter is not the same as the ending of the last. The reason for this will be revealed in the next chapter. **

**I wanted to get some character growth going on before I go straight into the first contact on Harvest, hence the reason I decided to start the story on Eridanus II. All the branches of the UNSCDF will be featured in this story, and of course Spartans. All types of warfare will also be here, be it land, space, air, armored, and many others. **

**Enjoy the story! Thank you for reading. Please review if you like the story. **


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